Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down

Turn bad news into the best thing ever

“Though hidden from plain sight, on the other side of every challenge is the opportunity to experience immense personal growth. Starting now, make the effort to view all challenges that come your way as hidden opportunities. This simple shift in mindset will make a tremendous difference in the number of accomplishments you experience throughout your life.” Josh Hinds: Live Big: It’s Your Life

Several months ago, within a three day period I heard from three friends who each had lost their executive level positions. As you might expect, they were angry, anxious and depressed, and worried about what the future might bring. That’s human nature, and we’ve all been there, one way or another.

Without really being aware it was happening, they had begun the process of “awfulizing” – visualizing mental images of their families living under a bridge because they were unable to support them. When I assured them that they would very soon look back and say it was the best thing that could have happened, I think they understood the message at an intellectual level, but in their hearts really didn’t buy it.

Over the past week I heard from all three friends. Two of them have just started new jobs, and the third is trying to decide which of several job offers he wants to accept. In every case the new job is closer to their heart’s passion than what they were doing before, and they get a pay raise to boot.

Sooner or later something like that is going to happen to all of us because, to paraphrase the title of Harold Kushner’s wonderful book, bad things do happen to good people. And when they do, you would ideally look back and say it was the best thing that ever could have happened – and if you can’t say that, at least be able to have found some blessing from the experience.